ubuntu-appstore-developers team mailing list archive

[Roberto Alsina <roberto.alsina@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One advantage of doing it on first boot is the possibility of letting the
user decide a "human readable label" for the device that will be consistent
all through the device's life.

It all depends on what features and user experiences we want to implement.

For example: user reinstalls device, then the store suggests "want to
reinstall all your apps".

That implies that the store will know this newly installed device is the
same one as a device the user used before, which then implies we should ID
it somehow, either via the human-friendly label or some HW serial number.

If we use a serial number, there are a number of privacy concerns (which
could be alleviated using a hash? No?) If we use the human-friendly label,
then we need to let the user change it somehow and preserve the device's
identity.

I suspect we should first come up with user stories and then design the
feature.



On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Marc Deslauriers <
marc.deslauriers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 14-01-30 03:00 PM, Martin Albisetti wrote:
> > We are planning some work related to optionally tracking installed
> > apps per device so we can provide users a list of apps (both current
> > and past) of apps installed on each device (planning ahead for
> > convergance).
> > Besides allocating a unique id for a device, we need to gather some
> > information from the client about the device is running on, a nice
> > user-readable name, but also some hardware specs so we can provide
> > developers with meaningful numbers on what their userbase is running
> > (we won't track unique hardware IDs like mac addresses and such).
> >
> >
> > Proposed API:
> >
> > POST /api/register-device (OAuth signed)
> > Expected data (json encoded dict): device brand, device model(, other
> > device specs and capabilites)
> > Return value: a unique device id (string, uuid like) that will
> > identify this device with the click store
> >
> > Use case: the client running in the device will register such device
> > against the click store once per "first setup" (for example when first
> > booting the device or using the store for the first time, client
> > choice) passing the device's metadata/hardware information, through an
> > OAuth signed request. The server will generate a unique id, will store
> > it (along with the device details) and link to the signing user, and
> > will return this (device) id to the client for future usage against
> > the API.
> >
> > This device id must be passed as API parameter each time this client
> > requests an app download to the click store (besides the already known
> > package name parameter, using existent API endpoint).
> >
> > If no device ID is passed, for backward compatibility and for people
> > who would rather we don't track their devices, we'll assume a "default
> > device" and move on.
> >
> > Are there any concerns with this approach?   Security or otherwise?
> >
>
> Sounds fine to me. Perhaps it should be when the user accesses the store
> for the
> first time, not at first boot.
>
> We have a good reason for doing this: so the store can display apps that
> are
> compatible with the device. It would make sense that it's done when the
> user
> accesses the store for the first time.
>
> Any reason why the device id is generated by the server, and not generated
> by
> the device? (presumably the privacy zealots would rather be able to change
> it
> themselves at some point...)
>
> Marc.
>
>
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